China's NextEV gains an investment of 0.5 billion dollars, with new car models to be launched against Tesla

By the morning of September 17th, Chinese automobile manufacturer NextEV has finished a round of financing reaching 0.5 billion dollars, with Sequoia Capital and Joy Capital as the investors. This company plans to exploit cheap and environmentally friendly Internet electric cars against Tesla. The financing goal of NextEV was actually at 1 billion dollars.

NextEV was found last year, with Libin and some other Net entrepreneurs as the founders. The company received investment from Tencent and Hillhouse Capital Group. NextEV plans to launch a super car to fight against Tesla Model S in 2016,and have cars produced by traditional car manufacturers.

During the past year, there emerged many electric car venture companies which gained support from investors and Internet companies as they believe Chinese government brought new opportunities when promoting electric cars and upgrading traditional manufacturing industries.

Besides super cars, NextEV also plans to launch car models suitable for most common people with prices half of Tesla’s Model S, which are sold at least at 620,000 RMB in China market.

Zhangyu, Managing Director of Autoforesight Shanghai, pointed out that more andmore cities are restricting issuance of new car licenses,and thus people are motivated to buy electric cars. And NextEV may gain huge market share if the company succeeds in making cars stable and better than those of Tesla.

NextEV was founded in Shanghai. The investors also include Lixiang, founder of Autohome and Liu Qiangdong, CEO of JD. The company is now under operation by senior official Martin Leach of Maserati and Ford, with a staff of 300, who are mainly responsible for research and development. Besides, the company also established offices in Silicon Valley, Munich, London and Beijing.